Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords

KOTOR 2

Kotor2 is a popular Star Wars game, expanding on the lore of the Old Republic in the wake of Revan.

Overview

The game itself is a real-time over-the-shoulder team-based RPG. The game mechanics are heavily influenced by the d20 Star Wars game. You follow a mostly linear plot, gain levels, acquire companions, and get better gear.

Assessment

Graphics

This game is over ten years old and hasn't aged all that well. The graphics aren't distractingly bad, but people watching me play commented, "wow, how old is that game?"

The movement scripts are pretty good, though. It's fun watching lightsabers flash and deflect blasters.

Gameplay/Combat

I specialized in melee, and all encounters were far too easy. In general combat didn't feel very good. When you start to attack, you get to queue up your actions. That's great, but for some reason you can't queue up buffs unless there is an attack. Very annoying. Also, one of the companions would often do a melee attack when I queued up a spell. Also annoying. Between the annoyances and the ease of fights, combat was tedious.

On the other hand, some of the force powers are pretty cool. At the end, Force Lightning was decimating everything.

Puzzles/Bonus Quests

Ugh, so bad. I should have skipped more of these. Too much running around doing nothing, punctuated with boring combat. Puzzles were generally too obvious, with the occasional "what do I do now?"

Main Story

The actual story was decent. This is the only reason I can think to play this game. The dialogue is very well done.

Level Up

Good. Leveling up is pretty fun. There are a lot of choices. You have enough variety of companions to cover any weaknesses in case you make a mistake. You eventually gain enough levels that you start down one path and change your mind. At the end, I was gaining powers I never planned to use (melee skills on a mage, force powers on a fighter).

Items

Poor. Getting new items is pretty comparable to other RPGs. However, there is to convenient way to compare item. "Cool. I found a Mandalorian Shield. Uh... what does it do?" Instead of a quick tooltip of the abilities, you have to dig through menus and scroll through an unsorted list of items to find the new thing. For the most part, I didn't bother. Every few levels I would see if I had somehow acquired a better items.

Crafting

Mediocre. The crafting system is almost cool, but it has a few problems. The biggest problem is that it is not clear what item upgrades fit into which items. Is "Energy Absorption 3" underlayer or overlayer?

Companions

Mixed bag. There is a lot of variety in your companions and their stories develop. However, none of them are very deep, and it's not easy to extract the story. Every so often you have to talk to them and go through the same dialog choices you have seen a dozen times before you know if there is anything new. The different companions are great, though. Something for everyone.

Voice Acting/Dialogue

The voice acting is always good and often outstanding. It pairs with good writing to make you look forward to talking with NPCs. 

The Sith Restored Content Mod

Also known as M4-78 mod, this comes highly recommended, but I disagree. It adds another planet, but the puzzles and voice acting are done by fans. The quality of the puzzles are about the same as the rest of the game, except the running around is even worse. While the voice acting is very good for a fan mod, it is far inferior to the excellent work done in the game. Since I consider the voice acting the best part of the game, this Mod is worse than pointless.

Overall

Kotor2 is generally boring with dated graphics. The highlights are the voice acting. It took me 78 hours to play but 20 would have been more tolerable. Overall, I don't recommend.